Free Republic

As President Obama gears up for his presidential visit to Cuba this weekend – the first in 80 years – scientists are pondering the future of Guantánamo Bay Naval Base. One idea proposed is the creation of a transnational conservation area, or peace park.

South Korea's Leader Warns of North Korea Collapse SEOUL, South Korea -- Feb 15, 2016, 11:40 PM ET South Korea's president warned Tuesday that rival North Korea faces collapse if it doesn't abandon its nuclear bomb program, an unusually strong broadside that will likely infuriate Pyongyang. President Park Geun-hye, in a nationally televised parliamentary address defending her decision to shut down a jointly run factory park in North Korea, said South Korea will take unspecified "stronger and more effective" measures to make North Korea realize its nuclear ambitions will result only in speeding up of its "regime collapse."

Before becoming a Florida senator or a 2016 Republican presidential hopeful, Marco Rubio was apparently just another kid caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. After a bad first year at college in Missouri, Rubio returned home to Miami shortly before the summer of 1990, when he was arrested in May at age 18 for being in a public park after it had closed for the night, the Washington Post reported Thursday. The misdemeanor offense was eventually dismissed, and most of the documentation that led to the dismissal of charges has been destroyed by the Miami-Dade County court...

A Chesapeake park ranger was caught on camera pointing his pistol at a couple. It was a confrontation that started because the couple left a city park after closing time. “I was hoping he wasn't going to shoot at us,” says Dylan Newton, who recorded a 7-minute video of the ranger. “With all the things going on in the media with cops using excessive force and all these videos coming out like that's the only thing running through my head like I’m going to be one of these people.” Newton says it all happened Sunday night at the city's Northwest...

Raising $100 billion a year of climate finance by 2020 is challenging, but possible through mechanisms including carbon markets, domestic carbon taxes and a variety of international transportation taxes, a United Nations advisory group said in a report Friday. Earlier this year, the UN's Ban established the panel, which includes U.S. National Economic Council Director Larry Summers, billionaire financier George Soros and Deutsche Bank vice-chairman Caio Koch-Weser. The financing will be used to support mitigation and adaptation efforts in developing countries--in particular, for the poorest and most vulnerable communities.

Link only - Memory of Rahway World War II vets kept alive in park

A 67-Year-Old CCW permit holder stopped a crime spree and a budding criminal career on Wednesday, 4 February, 2015 in Cobbs Creek Park in Pennsylvania.   The victim was walking along a path when the assailant, wearing a mask and brandishing a pistol, ran up to him, demanding that he "Give it up, give me all you got" according to the Upper Darby Police. The intended victim did not play the expected role.  He used a classic defensive technique, grabbing the assailant's gun while drawing his own.  The 67-Year-Old fired one shot to the attacker's head, killing him and ending...

Archaeologists conducting a survey in Great Basin National Park in eastern Nevada have stumbled upon a 132-year-old Winchester rifle propped against a tree, possibly having been left there more than a century ago. The rifle, which records show was manufactured and shipped by the gun maker in 1882, had been leaning against the Juniper tree for so long that the wood of its stock was cracked and deteriorated from the desert sun, its barrel rusted. "It really is a mystery," said Nichole Andler, a public information officer for Great Basin National Park. "We know it has been out there awhile...

The story of how it got there may never be known, but a rusting 132-year-old Winchester rifle -- known in U.S. lore as "the gun that won the West" -- was recently found resting against a juniper tree in a Nevada national park. The gun, its stock split, gray and faded like driftwood, and its steel barrel rusted brown, blended in perfectly against the tree in a remote part of the Great Basin National Park until a National Parks Service employee spotted it. “The rifle, exposed for all those years to sun, wind, snow and rain, was found leaning against...

GREAT BASIN NATIONAL PARK, Nev., -- Officials at Nevada's Great Basin National Park said they are trying to determine the origins of a 132-year-old rifle found leaning against a tree. Park officials said the rifle, identified by an engraving on its side as a Model 1873 Winchester manufactured in 1882, was found blending in with the colors of a juniper tree in the park and seems to have been there for "many years." The officials wrote on the park's Facebook page the rifle was "exposed to sun, wind, snow, and rain" and features "a cracked wood stock, weathered to grey"...

Archaeologists traversing the Great Basin National Park in Nevada came across an interesting find: a 132-year-old Winchester Model 1873 repeating rifle. The Facebook page for Great Basin National Park said in a post last week that researchers found the rifle, known as “the gun that won the West,” leaning up against a tree. “The 132 year-old rifle, exposed to sun, wind, snow, and rain was found leaning against a tree in the park. The cracked wood stock, weathered to grey, and the brown rusted barrel blended into the colors of the old juniper tree in a remote rocky outcrop, keeping...

Archaeologists conducting surveys in Nevada’s Great Basin National Park came upon a gun frozen in time: a .44-40 Winchester rifle manufactured in 1882. It was propped up against a juniper tree.

Hunters may be hired to kill 2,800 deer on Civil War battlefields By Dante D'Orazio on August 2, 2014 04:47 pm   (Scott Bauer, US Department of Agriculture / Flickr)  7inShare Civil War battlefields may soon light up with gunfire once again if a new plan to "reduce" deer populations gets approved. The US National Parks Service has proposed a $1.8 million plan to hire sharpshooters to hunt and kill white-tailed deer at three Civil War battlefields over the next five years.Deer populations at the Antietam and Monocacy battlefields, located in Maryland, as well as the Manassas battlefield in Virginia, are far...

The Interior Department announced today that the National Park Service is launching a study to “identify places and events associated with the story of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) Americans” for inclusion in the national parks system. The National Historic Landmark Program began actively looking for sites associated with LGBT history in 2010 for the potential of being listed in the National Register of Historic Places. Today’s directive, part of a broader administration initiative to “ensure that the National Park Service reflects and tells a more complete story of the people and events responsible for building this nation,” will...

After losing his father to the fertilizer plant explosion that almost destroyed his hometown, Parker Pustejovsky is spearheading the effort to recover—and he’s barely old enough to read. WEST, Texas — One year ago on April 17, five-year-old Parker Pustejovsky lost his father in the fertilizer plant explosion that wrecked the small Texas town of West. Joey Pustejovsky was one of 10 first responders to die trying to put out the fire that precipitated the blast. It wasn’t long before young Parker declared he would rebuild the city park, stripped bare by the explosion—and he’d do it by selling hot...

Lucas St. Clair pulled up to an overlook in Maine’s North Woods to a stunning vista of Mount Katahdin, the state’s highest peak and the endpoint of the Appalachian Trail. Stretched out below was a vast green carpet of pine and spruce flecked with golden aspens and blazing red maples; Millinocket Lake glistened in the distance.“I think it’s national-park worthy,” he said.This was not an idle observation. Mr. St. Clair and his mother, Roxanne Quimby, who owns the land, have been trying for years to turn these woods into a national park. But ferocious opposition has stalled their plan, partly...

Wisconsin authorities thought they could curb libidos at the state's nude beach by closing it on weekdays, but citation data shows the move just shifted the hanky-panky to the weekends. The Department of Natural Resources issued 13 citations at the beach between June and early October this year. All were for sex, and 11 were issued on weekends. Those numbers are down from 2012 totals, but wardens said the problem is far more prevalent than the numbers suggest. All the citations were issued during just seven days of surveillance and some people seen having sex ran off before wardens could...

Cmte. Chair Darrell Issa (R-CA) holds another in a series of hearings on the implementation of the Affordable Care Act and the rollout of the government's healthcare website. The administration says the website will be fixed by the end of November.

A planned immigration reform rally will take place on the National Mall on Tuesday even though the site is closed due to the government shutdown. Organizers for the "Camino Americano: March for Immigration Reform" were spotted Monday setting up a stage and equipment on the National Mall for the rally which will take place on Tuesday. A few scattered barriers around the park have signs informing visitors that the area is closed as a result of the government shutdown. Susana Flores, a spokesperson for the rally, confirmed for the Washington Examiner that the Park Service will allow the event to

Let it be known: McCovey Cove doesn't have a monopoly on strange watery MLB happenings. The scene on the Allegheny River outside PNC Park was as wacky as anything we've seen in San Francisco on Sunday, as a fan appeared to have brought a hoverboard to the Cubs-Pirates game. Marty McFly would have been proud -- and after all, we're only two years away from these things being widely available: